What we believe

You could sum up the core message of Christianity like this:

There is a God, who made everything including us; he longs for us to know him in a relationship of love.

We have turned our backs on him and decided to live our own way, even though we owe him everything. This is why life is often painful, difficult and frustrating. We are not truly free until reconciled to God.

God showed his love to us by coming into our world. Jesus was God in our world as a person and when he died on the cross he paid the price for our rejection of God.

Jesus rose from the dead, so we can experience new life in him. We can talk to him and ask him to forgive us because of what he did on the cross.

So the friendship with God which we were created to enjoy can be experienced by anyone who trusts in Jesus! We can know God as our Father. He speaks to us in the bible and enables us to change.

So, you see, Christianity is not so much good advice about how to live but good news about how to get right with God.

Now clearly, that’s a big deal. And naturally enough, people want to know whether they can trust this message and whether it will work for them. The Bible says it is true for everyone, but who says the Bible is true? How do we know there’s a God at all? And why all this fuss about Jesus?

We don’t think people should switch their brains off to become Christians! At Bethel we think there are good answers to genuine questions. So we love to have honest discussion and to work through the issues you have about life and faith. That’s one reason we run Christianity Explored courses. It’s a great way to see if there are satisfactory answers.

Or if you don’t want to go to a course, just come in on a Sunday and hear what the Bible says. We try to be around any time if you want to chat or have questions to ask.